Inquiry based learning that will change how you teach forever

Post navigation

Well, we have ended up to my last blog writing for now. In the previous blog post I gave a sneak peak to my doctoral research results. There are interesting findings in many perspective. Finlands core curriculum is rather versatile in information literacy issues. The problem will not be in curriculum, when we are working on teaching our students to be information savvy. The challenge we face is in teachers’ skills and use of tools; how to enhance the learning of students information literacy skills. This has been a challenge for a long time. And what are the tools?

The studied core curriculum presents issues, which function as preliminary phases before entering the information searching part. There is for example the inquiring mind. This idea is very similar with Guided Inquiry Design. The text in general changed from the 2004 core curriculum to 2014. The earlier often stated, that ‘the student will learn’ and ‘the student is taught’. The new 2014 core curriculum states ‘the student is encouraged’ and ‘the student is supported’, and so forth. This is pointing to a more student centred learning approach. The encouragement and supporting the students to find their own strengths and best learning styles is also about learning to learn.

The least interesting issue in 2014 core curriculum results at the moment is the part of information searching and critical thinking. These themes came out strong in the interviews. But what was emphasised in the core curriculum but not in the interviews was working with the found information. In my opinion the tools in GID could be extremely useful also in the context of the Finnish core curriculum.

The teachers in my study say, that the students have difficulty expressing their doings and thoughts in writing; especially when they would need to reflect on their learning. The tools in GID provides help in the construction of learning and making the progress more concrete and easier to follow for the student. Issues like reviewing, summarising, combining and constructing information is expected in the core curriculum. Students very often forget working with the information, since they are used to making homework like small tasks: finding facts and listing them on a worksheet, presentation or paper. As we know, this is also an issue of how to give and formulate the given assignment. It is also challenging for the students to learn a new way of working.

Learning to use the inquiry logs and journal is crucial in making the leanring concrete and in keeping the collected sources organised. These are magnificent tools for teachers to use. The recording of students learning and the tools to support the learning process are the core. When I tested GID in a small-scale project, the teachings during that process were remembered afterwards.

The assessment – the new ideology of continuous assessment by the teachers could be greatly benefitted by these tools as well. With the tools the teacher will know how the assignment result was reached during the process – not to mention to get the understanding of moments of possible interventions if needed during the process.

This was just a quick glimpse to the issues of how to combine GID and the Finnish core curriculum. The issue is as important as it is interesting. During 2017 I have also been involved in the research of false media, or fake news, whichever expression we want to use. Me and two other researchers have studied the use of sources of the most popular Finnish false media. We have with the same crew also written a book called Valheen jäljillä (On the track of lies) and it will be published in the beginning of 2018 (only in Finnish).

Seems like there are powers in the world at the moment, which try to divide people in case after case. Whether it is politics, sports, nutrition, or society. Even social media kind of got out of hands, as former Facebook manager Palihapitiya stated just now in December 2017. Our students have to reach a high enough level of general knowledge, reading skills, critical thinking skills and research skills to be able to come to a decision in whichever issue they face. In my mind, a lot of these issues could be set to a better track by implementing GID ideology.

I will be coming to Denver in the beginning of February 2018 for ALISE conference. In case one of you readers will be there too, please contact me! It would be very nice to exchange ideas! In case you are around, let me know: anu (at) anuojaranta (dot) com

Greetings from Finland! The snow finally arrived and made the dark time of the year a little bit lighter. The winter solstice is just days away and then we will be again heading towards longer days.

All right, now let us move forward in my blogging week. I wrote about Finland’s situation at the moment in the field of education. Many of these issues have pushed me to work with schools and libraries and to try to make a difference.

Turku Cathedral

I am interested in information literacy and how it is present in the Finland’s national core curriculum, and how teachers and school librarians understand these terms. The curriculum is not giving any definitions for information managing or information literacy. Five teachers and five school librarians in the same schools were asked how they understand information managing, information literacy and multiliteracy (to clear things out, they more or less have the same substance, but still with clear differences). The results were very interesting. Information literacy is a term of information science but the other two are more from the pedagogical side. I assembled a model of the answers and saw that both professions concentrate in their understanding to information searching and critical thinking. Librarians even more than the teachers.

Then, what about the core curriculum? In an open analysis I was able to come up with a model with 13 stages. I then divided the model into three parts, pre-information searching, information searching and post-information searching. With this I want to emphasise, that information seeking needs preparation and the found information needs to be worked with.

There has to be some preconditions how teachers in the learning situation should prepare the class. One of the most interesting findings was the phase inquiring mind. The 2014 core curriculum is emphasising student to be curious and study issues from a new perspective and with an open mind. A teacher is expected to encourage students in this.

Santa Lucia, the bringer of light, celebrated in Turku.

The interesting finding is that most of the times when information literacy issues were mentioned in the curriculum findings belonged to the post-information searching part. This was different from both teachers and school librarians. The core curriculum is however emphasising how the students should be taught to work with the found information. This finding gave me a lot of joy, since my experience and also the research literature shows that this is the difficult part with student. Reviewing, summarising, comparing, compiling, and not just trying to get ready ASAP. The very interesting finding in all this was, that the 2004 had exactly similar emphasis with a little bit different terminology.

The results in full can be read in the thesis next year, but personally I am very exited about the results. The problems in students’ information seeking has been proved in the classroom and in research for the last 20 years. It has also been named, that teachers don’t have tools to meet these difficulties in students’ information behaviour.

Now Finland has a good curriculum, only thing is to make this work! And in my mind, GID has really a role to play!

I am very pleased Leslie saved a spot for me in order to blog about my thoughts. I wrote last year as well. It has been a pleasure to read all your practices in GID, this has given me a lot of inspiration! Finland has just celebrated the 100th birthday and it is an appropriate time to take a look at what is going on in education, a short glance.

Let me start by presenting myself. I am a librarian gone researcher. I have a history in school libraries. There were issues, which pushed me into information science research. I have planned my blogging week to be divided into three blog posts: one to present the current situation in Finland in the field of education and reading. The second to be about my research I am finalising at the moment and the last post to be about where in all this can we see Guided Inquiry Design having a place.

Finland is in the middle of a curriculum change, as the primary school changed into the new core curriculum in 2016 and the seventh grade in 2017. The eight and ninth grades will follow in 2018 and 2019. Curriculum change takes place approximately every 10 years. Therefore we are just in the beginning of this period.

As changes always, this gave reason to a lot of questions and even problems. The biggest change affecting all the work is the change in evaluation and assessment. Less numbers are given and most of the assessment should be done along the course, as continuous evaluation. The evaluation will be given in written and the teacher should have an evaluation discussion with each student. The students are also required to set their own goals for learning.

Another change has come in the form of phenomenon based learning. Every student is entitled into at least one phenomenon project during the school year. This means, that a theme, a phenomenon, is studied in collaboration with several subjects as a theme day, theme week or a longer project worked on once every week. There are several ways to carry this out. However, the problem has been finding the planning time, to fit the projects in to the hourly planning of different subjects. This is much easier to carry out in the primary school (1-6 classes, but to take this to the secondary school context (7-9 classes) with tighter subject boundaries – it does require more coordinating and planning.

Then there is an issue of the digital leap. For several years there has been a target to get more educational technology into schools and into learning. The digital leap has been a very hot subject in Finland. It feels like there are two camps: the ones that feel that IT (information technology) is not the key to better learning results and the camp where people feel it is the requirement for good learning results.

The issue is more complex than this. A private consulting company had rearranged the latest PISA results. They point out that the digital technology devises, which the student are using on their own in class are even worsening the learning results. The teachers’ use of technology had a more positive effect and also with the IT technology the students are using during past time. These results just indicate that the mere use of technology does not count as pedagogical use of technology. Which already made sense before the study.

Kuhankuono National Park

But the feeling I have at the moment is that the changes have come too fast and the schools were partly left with too little support and further education in this situation. There is a lot of frustration, working over hours and even resistance.

Then the issue of reading surfaced this October. The further analysis of 2016 PISA results show, that 10% of students graduating from compulsory comprehensive school (classes 1-9) have such poor reading skills that they difficulty to function in the society and in their further studies. The majority of these 10% are boys. The difference in reading skills between boys and girls is one of the biggest in comparison between all PISA countries. The government took initiative and established the Literacy Forum. This forum (which has 30 members, only 2 from libraries) has a goal by the end of August 2018 to come up with a plan, which would engage the whole nation to a community effort in reading, a reading bee.

In my doctoral research I have analysed the Finnish core curriculum looking for issues relating to information literacy skills. I have structured a model of these issues and will present it in my thesis. However, I have lately started to think that how is it that there are a lot of issues in library and information science, which would be of significant help in education, but these models just are not known in schools? Is it that the researchers cannot communicate to the field or in this case, is it about the difficulties to communicate from a field to another?

We take for example GID. We who know about the method have to be vigilant and energetic in pursuing contact with teachers and librarians. We should work with shareholders to see the benefits of library and information science resources to education. For some 20 years have teachers presented similar difficulties in students information behaviour. Still we are facing the same difficulties. Communication and collaboration is the key!

As students develop their own question, they are asked to think deeply and compassionately about their topic. During our most recent session, students were read the story Turtle Turtle Watch Out by April Pulley Sayre. We brainstormed questions as we discussed the story, and then compared different types of sea turtles and the issues they face in their ecosystems. Students then shared their learning on Flipgrid based on their research using WorldBook, Vancouver Aquarium, and safe Google searches using search engines.

This coming week we will work on designing a protective solution for turtle babies in their habitat. I look forward to seeing our students in action next week sharing their amazing creations, their research and their critical thinking! Part of their sharing next week will include peer feedback based on the core competencies in our standards.

The next step was to discuss the validity of questions. Ground rules were created to encourage students to ask good questions about each other’s presentations, and to move away from a focus on getting the right answers. We debated open and closed questions, worked on this at home, and then shared good ideas for why open-ended questions are so much more interesting than closed questions. We have a strict rule that no question is a bad question, but all good questions lead to more questions!

It was tough for me to take a step back and wait while students took needed time to shift from answer to question. Initially, they copied each other’s questions, but slowly the conversation opened up to more interesting questions as I role modeled a few of my own questions. There were a few students who wanted to give answers, but we had to rein ourselves in and come back to the driving questions around ecosystems. It was definitely a learning curve to move away from the ‘googlable’ answer to understand what we wanted to research further.

Students were then encouraged to use Pebble Go as a launching base to further their research and examine more about their topic. Again, they shared their learning using Flipgrid. Some presented beautiful flowcharts, others used the cool iPad app which comes within the Pebble Go, whilst others made their own dioramas or research reports on the biodiversity of ecosystems in British Columbia and beyond. Again, the focus was on asking questions about the research, as well as learning from the students who were co-teaching their peers. We touched on the socio-emotional learning as well with questions reflecting how they were feeling as they researched. Most students enjoyed the process of researching what they wanted to discover. Some students shared that making their inventions in the first week was difficult because they could not get the right results. The time taken for producing was perhaps not conducive for further learning. I had given a framework of one hour per week to work on assignments, but am discovering we may need more time.

My book clubs are ten week sessions, and we meet virtually using Zoom technology. My class is limited to 15 students because I want each student to have time to present their learning every other week.

I will share some of the success and challenges of running my primary book clubs online from a guided inquiry, and design thinking perspective. My intention is to scaffold inquiry and engage students to become active problem solvers, to dream big, solve authentic problems and research with passion!

Facilitator and Presenter Roles

The teacher role has now changed from “sage on the stage” to FACILITATOR, and the student has moved from the role of consumer to one of producer or PRESENTER. In terms of initiating the teaching parts of the guided inquiry, the teacher needs to hook his or her students in with an essential question or focus. This year I am using our BC new curriculum grade 3 science standards including the essential question, “What is an Ecosystem?” My role is to get students excited about the topic and big idea, and channel their thinking into further questions about ecosystems close to home or outside of their community. I also hope to role model the importance of what makes an essential question in science so important, and praise skills as opposed to content!

How did I do this? The first week, I worked with parents and students to understand the shift in pedagogy, and invited them to read some of these lovely picture books on Overdrive e library which would create the movement towards creative responses, and growth mindset. These books were used as “hooks” to bring in the discussion about art in science, engineering and PBL, and being curious about the world, as inventors and creative designers.

I encouraged students to be inventors of their own questions and design something right off the get go. Each student came ready to share the following week either in our virtual class or on Flipgrid. Flipgrid allowed our students to present using video technology, and also view and comment on their classmates’ work. We spent a full hour listening and praising work effort with our student presentations. The socio-emotional learning was very evident when things did not turn out right. Check out this video of our student Davis sharing his Egg Picker Upper. He did eventually get it to work using some extra ideas and appendages. One of my students who experienced challenges with sharing orally presented his learning authentically using a sock puppet and shadows.

Our book clubs have been a huge success at our distributed learning school, Heritage Christian Online School. We serve approximately 3000 students all over the Province of beautiful British Columbia as an independent partially funded K-12 school. Our students learn with the support of an accredited teacher, using the British Columbia mandated curriculum from a Christian perspective.

We are blessed to work with a large special needs group of students who are also included in our book clubs.

Presently we have 5 book club moderators who run book clubs from a guided inquiry approach either using Lit Circles, or STREAM (Science, Technology, Relationship, Engineering, Art and Math) as a framework.

Everything we do in our learning commons comes from our vision of “Encouraging Christian community through discipleship, literacy and innovation”. We believe in high tech with high touch!

I believe in Inquiry because I believe it fosters a self-directed and self-driven desire to life-long, continued education. A child/student who learns to intrinsically ask questions and seek answers through a research driven process such as GID will most likely become an adult who continues to learn, question, research. I further believe that GID is much needed, to discourage and discontinue the current trend towards believing fake news, false information, scams, etc.

Because of my beliefs, I am always searching for ways to encourage student driven Inquiry. Most recently at my campus, I have begun to find and publicize technology apps and programs that either promote Inquiry, provide a great platform for Inquiry or can easily be integrated into a unit of Inquiry. Apps and websites such as wonderopolis.com and recap provide a safe place for students to wonder, ask questions and seek answers. Other technology can be used to promote shared note taking (Google docs is one such technological advantage in this area). Technology can also be used to organize ideas, and present findings (such as movie making with iMovie or screencastify).

I would not say that any one app or website has become widely used across grade levels at my campus. This is another example of an early stage plan to widely promote GID at my campus. Therefore, I would love to learn more such apps and websites from all my GID colleagues. If you have an app or website your campus uses, please leave me a comment with the name and description of use! I look forward to adding to my list!

Each year at Kujawa to culminate the elementary level education, the graduating class completes a unit of inquiry we refer to in IB as Exhibition. Think history fair type of event and you will have a general idea of the type of work the students go through in preparation for their big day.

This year our new Principal, Kim Jenkins brought to me an idea of a Book Tasting. When I began to look into “book tasting” activities, I realized this would be a perfect way to begin the immerse stage of GID within this unit of inquiry. This will be our first attempt at “Book Tasting” so any advice you have to share would be most welcome!

Our purpose in this unit is for students to follow an inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic. Arranging a “sampling” of books that depict these inquiry strands will begin the immersion process.

My plans are to produce a place-mat, a menu of countries, and a note taking page yet to be designed. A buffet of books that relate to various cultures will be on each table. Students will spend five minutes sampling 3-4 books.

The books and other artifacts will remain on reserve in the library and 4th grade classrooms throughout the inquiry unit

One of the best things about Guided Inquiry is that it allows teachers to allow students to “think outside of the box”. Common Core and many other education initiatives eliminated the ability for students to learn at their own place and in their own way. Guided Inquiry allows for creativity, and self-paced research with the child in the driver’s seat of their learning. With this model, the teachers and librarians guide and encourage students to feed their curiosity and creativity. When we allow students to inquire and create in this way their engagement and learning skyrockets.

The second grade students and teacher at the school where I serve as librarian embraced the Guided Inquiry process when they were investigating Presidents and First Ladies. The student engagement was incredible. Some students said they had never read, learned, and written as much as they did during this unit of study! The inquiry circles allowed students to share what they found interesting and inspiration about our past Presidents and First Ladies. They shared similarities between the Presidents and made connections that might not have been made if a traditional research approach had been used for this unit.

Once the students had completed the Gather Phase for this project, I read What Presidents Are Made Of by Hanock Piven. We discussed the collage-like illustrations and made connections with the materials he chose in order to create several of the President’s portraits. The students used the ideas from this text to brainstorm a list of objects that connected with the President or First Lady they had learned about during the unit. Many students brought things from home, however, I provided many miscellaneous items for them to use for the Create Phase. Our MakerSpace tasks for the month of March was to create President/First Lady portraits. Guided Inquiry and MakerSpace are a match made in heaven. I was very pleased with the growth I saw in students throughout this unit. They learned to take notes instead of copy information from a resource, and they learned how to discuss and share what they had learned with their classmates.

Students could choose to create a collage or pen an “I AM…” poem about their chosen historical figure. Several students chose to complete both tasks. Their products illustrate a small portion of their learning. Below, you can see some examples from the Create Phase of the Presidential Guided Inquiry Unit.